Couple hears boom’ on Route 24 in Brockton as windshield breaks

Maria Papadopoulos

Tuesday

Aug 24, 2010 at 12:01 AMAug 24, 2010 at 10:12 PM

Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that debris from a work zone struck the car, but “the evidence suggests otherwise,” state police spokesman David Procopio said in an e-mail to The Enterprise on Monday.

Mark Charles and his wife, Dawn, are still wondering what struck their windshield as they traveled under an overpass along Route 24 on Sunday afternoon.

“We just got under the overpass. Then all of a sudden I hear ‘boom!’ and then I couldn’t see what it was because it was so fast,” Charles, 48, of Everett said Monday.

The impact shattered the windshield on the passenger side of their 2007 Nissan Altima, where Dawn Charles, 44, sat.

“She was just covered with glass. Thankfully, she was not injured,” her husband said.

Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that debris from a work zone struck the car, but “the evidence suggests otherwise,” state police spokesman David Procopio said in an e-mail to The Enterprise on Monday.

“This was some sort of object with a paper wrapper or label that was thrown or fell from the road above, or from a vehicle on the road above, onto the car below,” Procopio said.

A responding trooper found a small bit of paper embedded in the cracked windshield glass, “suggestive, perhaps, of a paper label or wrapper on the object that fell,” he said.

Authorities found a plastic bottle nearby, but there is not enough evidence to conclude it was the object that hit the vehicle, he said.

“It seems somewhat unlikely that a plastic bottle could do that damage,” he said.

Police do not know whether the object was dropped intentionally or accidentally.

No arrests had been made in the case by Monday afternoon.

Emergency crews responded to Route 24, near Route 123 in Brockton, around 2:30 p.m. Sunday after Charles, who immediately pulled his car over, called state police to report his windshield had been shattered.

The couple was traveling home to Everett on Route 24 after visiting friends in Brockton when the incident occurred, Charles said.

Construction has been ongoing at the overpass, located near Route 123. The overpass is mostly fenced in on both sides of Route 123.

Charles said he doesn’t think someone intentionally threw the object from the fenced-in overpass.

“Whatever it was, thank God it never went all the way through the windshield, it would have hit (my wife) right in the face,” he said.

Maria Papadopoulos can be reached at mpapadopoulos@enterprisenews.com.

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